PARKING charges which allow 24-hour stays have been introduced at a Dunfermline supermarket car park.

It costs £4 for visitors to leave their vehicle at Tesco Fire Station on Winterthur Lane, close to the city centre, for a full day.

As a requirement of planning consent Tesco must agree a scheme for parking provision which limits the duration of stay of users with Fife Council.

Once approved this should be implemented and maintained, except as otherwise agreed in writing by the local authority.

The store was given the go-ahead in May 2008 but the project was hit by delays, and one of the sticking points was parking.

Two council car parks, at Bruce Street and Carnegie Drive, were closed to accommodate the new superstore and part of the planning approval was that Tesco should pay £500,000 in compensation and £135,000 for public art.

There was also a stipulation that they should pay a further £528,000 for the loss of 48 car-parking spaces but they argued against this successfully.

In 2017 an agreement was made which allowed Tesco to change the original maximum stay of three hours to two hours.

The system relies on number plate technology to monitor the length of time drivers have stayed, and meant that drivers who parked there for over the signposted time limit were automatically charged a £70 fine.

The two-hour rule was implemented in October 2019.

Now car park users can book extra time via an app called YourParkingSpace, with the £4 24-hour charge costing just 20p more than Fife Council's £3.80 charge for over four hours in their long-stay car parks.

Anyone planning on leaving their vehicle at the store for longer than three hours will have to pay and prices start at £2.

Posters within the Tesco car park show that you can currently pay for one of the longer-term stay spaces, but it is understood that Tesco is still to reach an agreement with the council regarding the change to parking controls.

Alastair Hamilton, planning service manager, commented: "As part of the planning consent for this store, Tesco had to provide a suitable amount of customer parking, which they have.

"The provision and operation of the car parking is addressed by a condition of the planning consent. We'll discuss the proposal with Tesco to assess the implications of it."

The Press understands that Tesco have limited the number of spaces available to book for longer to 10, though signage does not make reference to this restriction.